The text is that of the first American appearance in book form, 1879.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY

IN TWO PARTS

PART I

At the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there is aparticularly comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels,for the entertainment of tourists is the business of the place,which, as many travelers will remember, is seated upon the edgeof a remarkably blue lake--a lake that it behooves every touristto visit. The shore of the lake presents an unbroken arrayof establishments of this order, of every category, from the"grand hotel" of the newest fashion, with a chalk-white front,a hundred balconies, and a dozen flags flying from its roof,to the little Swiss pension of an elder day, with its nameinscribed in German-looking lettering upon a pink or yellowwall and an awkward summerhouse in the angle of the garden.One of the hotels at Vevey, however, is famous, even classical,being distinguished from many of its upstart neighborsby an air both of luxury and of maturity. In this region,in the month of June, American travelers are extremely numerous;it may be said, indeed, that Vevey assumes at this periodsome of the characteristics of an American watering place.There are sights and sounds which evoke a vision, an echo,of Newport and Saratoga. There is a flitting hither and thitherof "stylish" young girls, a rustling of muslin flounces,a rattle of dance music in the morning hours, a sound ofhigh-pitched voices at all times. You receive an impressionof these things at the excellent inn of the "Trois Couronnes"and are transported in fancy to the Ocean House or to Congress Hall.But at the "Trois Couronnes," it must be added, there are otherfeatures that are much at variance with these suggestions:neat German waiters, who look like secretaries of legation;Russian princesses sitting in the garden; little Polishboys walking about held by the hand, with their governors;a view of the sunny crest of the Dent du Midi and the picturesquetowers of the Castle of Chillon.

I hardly know whether it was the analogies or the differences that wereuppermost in the mind of a young American, who, two or three years ago,sat in the garden of the "Trois Couronnes," looking about him,rather idly, at some of the graceful objects I have mentioned.It was a beautiful summer morning, and in whatever fashion the youngAmerican looked at things, they must have seemed to him charming.He had come from Geneva the day before by the little steamer,to see his aunt, who was staying at the hotel--Geneva having beenfor a long time his place of residence. But his aunt had a headache--his aunt had almost always a headache--and now she was shut up inher room, smelling camphor, so that he was at liberty to wander about.He was some seven-and-twenty years of age; when his friends spokeof him, they usually said that he was at Geneva "studying."When his enemies spoke of him, they said--but, after all, he hadno enemies; he was an extremely amiable fellow, and universally liked.What I should say is, simply, that when certain persons spokeof him they affirmed that the reason of his spending so muchtime at Geneva was that he was extremely devoted to a ladywho lived there--a foreign lady--a person older than himself.Very few Americans--indeed, I think none--had ever seen this lady,about whom there were some singular stories. But Winterbournehad an old attachment for the little metropolis of Calvinism;he had been put to school there as a boy, and he had afterwardgone to college there--circumstances which had led to his forminga great many youthful friendships. Many of these he had kept,and they were a source of great satisfaction to him.

After knocking at his aunt's door and learning that she was indisposed,he had taken a walk about the town, and then he had come in tohis breakfast. He had now finished his breakfast; but he was drinkinga small cup of coffee, which had been served to him on a little tablein the garden by one of the waiters who looked like an attache.At last he finished his coffee and lit a cigarette. Presently asmall boy came walking along the path--an urchin of nine or ten.The child, who was diminutive for his years, had an aged expressionof countenance, a pale complexion, and sharp little features.He was dressed in knickerbockers, with red stockings, which displayedhis poor little spindle-shanks; he also wore a brilliant red cravat.He carried in his hand a long alpenstock, the sharp point of whichhe thrust into everything that he approached--the flowerbeds,the garden benches, the trains of the ladies' dresses. In frontof Winterbourne he paused, looking at him with a pair of bright,penetrating little eyes.

"Will you give me a lump of sugar?" he asked in a sharp, hard little voice--a voice immature and yet, somehow, not young.

Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him, on which his coffeeservice rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar remained."Yes, you may take one," he answered; "but I don't think sugaris good for little boys."

This little boy stepped forward and carefully selected three ofthe coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket ofhis knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another place.He poked his alpenstock, lance-fashion, into Winterbourne's benchand tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth.

"Oh, blazes; it's har-r-d!" he exclaimed, pronouncing the adjectivein a peculiar manner.

Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he mighthave the honor of claiming him as a fellow countryman."Take care you don't hurt your teeth," he said, paternally.

"I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out.I have only got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night,and one came out right afterward. She said she'd slap meif any more came out. I can't help it. It's this old Europe.It's the climate that makes them come out. In America theydidn't come out. It's these hotels."

Winterbourne was much amused. "If you eat three lumps of sugar,your mother will certainly slap you," he said.

"She's got to give me some candy, then," rejoined his young interlocutor."I can't get any candy here--any American candy. American candy'sthe best candy."

"And are American little boys the best little boys?" asked Winterbourne.

"I don't know. I'm an American boy," said the child.

"I see you are one of the best!" laughed Winterbourne.

"Are you an American man?" pursued this vivacious infant.And then, on Winterbourne's affirmative reply--"American menare the best," he declared.

His companion thanked him for the compliment, and the child,who had now got astride of his alpenstock, stood lookingabout him, while he attacked a second lump of sugar.Winterbourne wondered if he himself had been like this in his infancy,for he had been brought to Europe at about this age.

"Here comes my sister!" cried the child in a moment."She's an American girl."

Winterbourne looked along the path and saw a beautifulyoung lady advancing. "American girls are the best girls,"he said cheerfully to his young companion.

"My sister ain't the best!" the child declared."She's always blowing at me."

"I imagine that is your fault, not hers," said Winterbourne.The young lady meanwhile had drawn near. She was dressed in white muslin,with a hundred frills and flounces, and knots of pale-colored ribbon.She was bareheaded, but she balanced in her hand a large parasol,with a deep border of embroidery; and she was strikingly, admirably pretty."How pretty they are!" thought Winterbourne, straightening himselfin his seat, as if he were prepared to rise.

The young lady paused in front of his bench, near the parapet of the garden,which overlooked the lake. The little boy had now converted his alpenstockinto a vaulting pole, by the aid of which he was springing about in the graveland kicking it up not a little.

"Randolph," said the young lady, "what ARE you doing?"

"I'm going up the Alps," replied Randolph. "This is the way!"And he gave another little jump, scattering the pebblesabout Winterbourne's ears.

"That's the way they come down," said Winterbourne.

"He's an American man!" cried Randolph, in his little hard voice.

The young lady gave no heed to this announcement, but lookedstraight at her brother. "Well, I guess you had better be quiet,"she simply observed.

It seemed to Winterbourne that he had been in a manner presented. He gotup and stepped slowly toward the young girl, throwing away his cigarette."This little boy and I have made acquaintance," he said, with great civility.In Geneva, as he had been perfectly aware, a young man was not at libertyto speak to a young unmarried lady except under certain rarely occurringconditions; but here at Vevey, what conditions could be better than these?--a pretty American girl coming and standing in front of you in a garden.This pretty American girl, however, on hearing Winterbourne's observation,simply glanced at him; she then turned her head and looked over the parapet,at the lake and the opposite mountains. He wondered whether he had gonetoo far, but he decided that he must advance farther, rather than retreat.While he was thinking of something else to say, the young lady turnedto the little boy again.

"I should like to know where you got that pole," she said.

"I bought it," responded Randolph.

"You don't mean to say you're going to take it to Italy?"

"Yes, I am going to take it to Italy," the child declared.

The young girl glanced over the front of her dress and smoothed out a knotor two of ribbon. Then she rested her eyes upon the prospect again."Well, I guess you had better leave it somewhere," she said after a moment.

"Are you going to Italy?" Winterbourne inquired in a toneof great respect.

The young lady glanced at him again. "Yes, sir," she replied.And she said nothing more.

"Are you--a-- going over the Simplon?" Winterbourne pursued,a little embarrassed.

"I don't know," she said. "I suppose it's some mountain.Randolph, what mountain are we going over?"

"Going where?" the child demanded.

"To Italy," Winterbourne explained.

"I don't know," said Randolph. "I don't want to go to Italy.I want to go to America."

"Oh, Italy is a beautiful place!" rejoined the young man.

"Can you get candy there?" Randolph loudly inquired.

"I hope not," said his sister. "I guess you have had enough candy,and mother thinks so too."

"I haven't had any for ever so long--for a hundred weeks!"cried the boy, still jumping about.

The young lady inspected her flounces and smoothed her ribbons again;and Winterbourne presently risked an observation upon the beautyof the view. He was ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had begunto perceive that she was not in the least embarrassed herself.There had not been the slightest alteration in her charming complexion;she was evidently neither offended nor flattered.If she looked another way when he spoke to her, and seemed notparticularly to hear him, this was simply her habit, her manner.Yet, as he talked a little more and pointed out some of the objectsof interest in the view, with which she appeared quite unacquainted,she gradually gave him more of the benefit of her glance; and thenhe saw that this glance was perfectly direct and unshrinking.It was not, however, what would have been called an immodest glance,for the young girl's eyes were singularly honest and fresh.They were wonderfully pretty eyes; and, indeed, Winterbourne had notseen for a long time anything prettier than his fair countrywoman'svarious features--her complexion, her nose, her ears, her teeth.He had a great relish for feminine beauty; he was addicted toobserving and analyzing it; and as regards this young lady's facehe made several observations. It was not at all insipid, but itwas not exactly expressive; and though it was eminently delicate,Winterbourne mentally accused it--very forgivingly--of a want of finish.He thought it very possible that Master Randolph's sister was a coquette;he was sure she had a spirit of her own; but in her bright,sweet, superficial little visage there was no mockery, no irony.Before long it became obvious that she was much disposedtoward conversation. She told him that they were going to Romefor the winter--she and her mother and Randolph. She asked himif he was a "real American"; she shouldn't have taken him for one;he seemed more like a German--this was said after a little hesitation--especially when he spoke. Winterbourne, laughing, answered thathe had met Germans who spoke like Americans, but that he had not,so far as he remembered, met an American who spoke like a German.Then he asked her if she should not be more comfortable in sittingupon the bench which he had just quitted. She answered that sheliked standing up and walking about; but she presently sat down.She told him she was from New York State--"if you know where that is."Winterbourne learned more about her by catching hold of her small,slippery brother and making him stand a few minutes by his side.

"Tell me your name, my boy," he said.

"Randolph C. Miller," said the boy sharply. "And I'll tell you her name";and he leveled his alpenstock at his sister.

"You had better wait till you are asked!" said this young lady calmly.

"I should like very much to know your name," said Winterbourne.

"Her name is Daisy Miller!" cried the child. "But that isn't her real name;that isn't her name on her cards."

"It's a pity you haven't got one of my cards!" said Miss Miller.

"Her real name is Annie P. Miller," the boy went on.

"Ask him HIS name," said his sister, indicating Winterbourne.

But on this point Randolph seemed perfectly indifferent;he continued to supply information with regard to his own family."My father's name is Ezra B. Miller," he announced."My father ain't in Europe; my father's in a betterplace than Europe;."

Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this was the mannerin which the child had been taught to intimate that Mr. Millerhad been removed to the sphere of celestial reward.But Randolph immediately added, "My father's in Schenectady.He's got a big business. My father's rich, you bet!"

"Well!" ejaculated Miss Miller, lowering her parasol and lookingat the embroidered border. Winterbourne presently releasedthe child, who departed, dragging his alpenstock along the path."He doesn't like Europe," said the young girl. "He wantsto go back."

"To Schenectady, you mean?"

"Yes; he wants to go right home. He hasn't got any boys here.There is one boy here, but he always goes round with a teacher;they won't let him play."

"And your brother hasn't any teacher?" Winterbourne inquired.

"Mother thought of getting him one, to travel round with us.There was a lady told her of a very good teacher;an American lady--perhaps you know her--Mrs. Sanders.I think she came from Boston. She told her of this teacher,and we thought of getting him to travel round with us.But Randolph said he didn't want a teacher traveling round with us.He said he wouldn't have lessons when he was in the cars.And we ARE in the cars about half the time. There was an Englishlady we met in the cars--I think her name was Miss Featherstone;perhaps you know her. She wanted to know why I didn't giveRandolph lessons--give him 'instruction,' she called it.I guess he could give me more instruction than I could give him.He's very smart."

"Yes," said Winterbourne; "he seems very smart."

"Mother's going to get a teacher for him as soon as we get to Italy.Can you get good teachers in Italy?"

"Very good, I should think," said Winterbourne.

"Or else she's going to find some school. He ought to learnsome more. He's only nine. He's going to college."And in this way Miss Miller continued to converse upon the affairsof her family and upon other topics. She sat there with herextremely pretty hands, ornamented with very brilliant rings,folded in her lap, and with her pretty eyes now resting uponthose of Winterbourne, now wandering over the garden, the peoplewho passed by, and the beautiful view. She talked to Winterbourneas if she had known him a long time. He found it very pleasant.It was many years since he had heard a young girl talk so much.It might have been said of this unknown young lady, who had comeand sat down beside him upon a bench, that she chattered.She was very quiet; she sat in a charming, tranquil attitude;but her lips and her eyes were constantly moving. She had a soft,slender, agreeable voice, and her tone was decidedly sociable.She gave Winterbourne a history of her movements and intentionsand those of her mother and brother, in Europe, and enumerated,in particular, the various hotels at which they had stopped."That English lady in the cars," she said--"Miss Featherstone--asked me if we didn't all live in hotels in America.I told her I had never been in so many hotels in my life as since Icame to Europe. I have never seen so many--it's nothing but hotels."But Miss Miller did not make this remark with a querulous accent;she appeared to be in the best humor with everything.She declared that the hotels were very good, when once yougot used to their ways, and that Europe was perfectly sweet.She was not disappointed--not a bit. Perhaps it was becauseshe had heard so much about it before. She had ever so manyintimate friends that had been there ever so many times.And then she had had ever so many dresses and things from Paris.Whenever she put on a Paris dress she felt as if shewere in Europe.

"It was a kind of a wishing cap," said Winterbourne.

"Yes," said Miss Miller without examining this analogy;"it always made me wish I was here. But I needn't havedone that for dresses. I am sure they send all the prettyones to America; you see the most frightful things here.The only thing I don't like," she proceeded, "is the society.There isn't any society; or, if there is, I don't knowwhere it keeps itself. Do you? I suppose there is somesociety somewhere, but I haven't seen anything of it.I'm very fond of society, and I have always had a great deal of it.I don't mean only in Schenectady, but in New York.I used to go to New York every winter. In New York I had lotsof society. Last winter I had seventeen dinners given me;and three of them were by gentlemen," added Daisy Miller."I have more friends in New York than in Schenectady--more gentleman friends; and more young lady friends too,"she resumed in a moment. She paused again for an instant;she was looking at Winterbourne with all her prettiness in herlively eyes and in her light, slightly monotonous smile."I have always had," she said, "a great deal of gentlemen's society."

Poor Winterbourne was amused, perplexed, and decidedly charmed.He had never yet heard a young girl express herself in justthis fashion; never, at least, save in cases where to say suchthings seemed a kind of demonstrative evidence of a certainlaxity of deportment. And yet was he to accuse Miss Daisy Millerof actual or potential inconduite, as they said at Geneva?He felt that he had lived at Geneva so long that he had losta good deal; he had become dishabituated to the American tone.Never, indeed, since he had grown old enough to appreciate things,had he encountered a young American girl of so pronounced a type as this.Certainly she was very charming, but how deucedly sociable!Was she simply a pretty girl from New York State? Were they alllike that, the pretty girls who had a good deal of gentlemen's society?Or was she also a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person?Winterbourne had lost his instinct in this matter, and his reasoncould not help him. Miss Daisy Miller looked extremely innocent.Some people had told him that, after all, American girlswere exceedingly innocent; and others had told him that,after all, they were not. He was inclined to think Miss DaisyMiller was a flirt--a pretty American flirt. He had never,as yet, had any relations with young ladies of this category.He had known, here in Europe, two or three women--persons olderthan Miss Daisy Miller, and provided, for respectability's sake,with husbands--who were great coquettes--dangerous, terrible women,with whom one's relations were liable to take a serious turn.But this young girl was not a coquette in that sense; she wasvery unsophisticated; she was only a pretty American flirt.Winterbourne was almost grateful for having found the formulathat applied to Miss Daisy Miller. He leaned back in his seat;he remarked to himself that she had the most charming nosehe had ever seen; he wondered what were the regular conditionsand limitations of one's intercourse with a pretty American flirt.It presently became apparent that he was on the way to learn.

"Have you been to that old castle?" asked the young girl, pointing with herparasol to the far-gleaming walls of the Chateau de Chillon.

"Yes, formerly, more than once," said Winterbourne."You too, I suppose, have seen it?"

"No; we haven't been there. I want to go there dreadfully.Of course I mean to go there. I wouldn't go away from herewithout having seen that old castle."

"It's a very pretty excursion," said Winterbourne, "and very easy to make.You can drive, you know, or you can go by the little steamer."

"You can go in the cars," said Miss Miller.

"Yes; you can go in the cars," Winterbourne assented.

"Our courier says they take you right up to the castle," the younggirl continued. "We were going last week, but my mother gave out.She suffers dreadfully from dyspepsia. She said she couldn't go.Randolph wouldn't go either; he says he doesn't think much of old castles.But I guess we'll go this week, if we can get Randolph."

"Your brother is not interested in ancient monuments?"Winterbourne inquired, smiling.

"He says he don't care much about old castles. He's only nine.He wants to stay at the hotel. Mother's afraid to leave him alone,and the courier won't stay with him; so we haven't been to many places.But it will be too bad if we don't go up there." And Miss Millerpointed again at the Chateau de Chillon.

"I should think it might be arranged," said Winterbourne."Couldn't you get some one to stay for the afternoon with Randolph?"

Miss Miller looked at him a moment, and then, very placidly,"I wish YOU would stay with him!" she said.

Winterbourne hesitated a moment. "I should much rather goto Chillon with you."

"With me?" asked the young girl with the same placidity.

She didn't rise, blushing, as a young girl at Geneva would have done;and yet Winterbourne, conscious that he had been very bold,thought it possible she was offended. "With your mother,"he answered very respectfully.

But it seemed that both his audacity and his respect were lostupon Miss Daisy Miller. "I guess my mother won't go, after all,"she said. "She don't like to ride round in the afternoon.But did you really mean what you said just now--that you wouldlike to go up there?"

"Most earnestly," Winterbourne declared.

"Then we may arrange it. If mother will stay with Randolph,I guess Eugenio will."

"Eugenio?" the young man inquired.

"Eugenio's our courier. He doesn't like to stay with Randolph;he's the most fastidious man I ever saw. But he's a splendid courier.I guess he'll stay at home with Randolph if mother does, and thenwe can go to the castle."

Winterbourne reflected for an instant as lucidly as possible--"we" could only mean Miss Daisy Miller and himself.This program seemed almost too agreeable for credence;he felt as if he ought to kiss the young lady's hand.Possibly he would have done so and quite spoiled the project,but at this moment another person, presumably Eugenio, appeared.A tall, handsome man, with superb whiskers, wearing a velvetmorning coat and a brilliant watch chain, approached Miss Miller,looking sharply at her companion. "Oh, Eugenio!" said MissMiller with the friendliest accent.

Eugenio had looked at Winterbourne from head to foot;he now bowed gravely to the young lady. "I have the honorto inform mademoiselle that luncheon is upon the table."

Miss Miller slowly rose. "See here, Eugenio!" she said;"I'm going to that old castle, anyway."

"To the Chateau de Chillon, mademoiselle?" the courier inquired."Mademoiselle has made arrangements?" he added in a tone which struckWinterbourne as very impertinent.

Eugenio's tone apparently threw, even to Miss Miller's own apprehension,a slightly ironical light upon the young girl's situation.She turned to Winterbourne, blushing a little--a very little."You won't back out?" she said.

"I shall not be happy till we go!" he protested.

"And you are staying in this hotel?" she went on."And you are really an American?"

The courier stood looking at Winterbourne offensively. The young man,at least, thought his manner of looking an offense to Miss Miller;it conveyed an imputation that she "picked up" acquaintances. "I shallhave the honor of presenting to you a person who will tell you all about me,"he said, smiling and referring to his aunt.

"Oh, well, we'll go some day," said Miss Miller.And she gave him a smile and turned away. She put upher parasol and walked back to the inn beside Eugenio.Winterbourne stood looking after her; and as she moved away,drawing her muslin furbelows over the gravel, said to himselfthat she had the tournure of a princess.

He had, however, engaged to do more than proved feasible, in promisingto present his aunt, Mrs. Costello, to Miss Daisy Miller.As soon as the former lady had got better of her headache,he waited upon her in her apartment; and, after the properinquiries in regard to her health, he asked her if she hadobserved in the hotel an American family--a mamma, a daughter,and a little boy.

"And a courier?" said Mrs. Costello. "Oh yes, I have observed them.Seen them--heard them--and kept out of their way." Mrs. Costello wasa widow with a fortune; a person of much distinction, who frequentlyintimated that, if she were not so dreadfully liable to sick headaches,she would probably have left a deeper impress upon her time. She had a long,pale face, a high nose, and a great deal of very striking white hair,which she wore in large puffs and rouleaux over the top of her head.She had two sons married in New York and another who was now in Europe.This young man was amusing himself at Hamburg, and, though he wason his travels, was rarely perceived to visit any particular cityat the moment selected by his mother for her own appearance there.Her nephew, who had come up to Vevey expressly to see her, was thereforemore attentive than those who, as she said, were nearer to her.He had imbibed at Geneva the idea that one must always be attentiveto one's aunt. Mrs. Costello had not seen him for many years,and she was greatly pleased with him, manifesting her approbationby initiating him into many of the secrets of that social sway which,as she gave him to understand, she exerted in the American capital.She admitted that she was very exclusive; but, if he were acquainted withNew York, he would see that one had to be. And her picture of the minutelyhierarchical constitution of the society of that city, which she presentedto him in many different lights, was, to Winterbourne's imagination,almost oppressively striking.

He immediately perceived, from her tone, that Miss Daisy Miller'splace in the social scale was low. "I am afraid you don't approveof them," he said.

"They are very common," Mrs. Costello declared. "They are the sortof Americans that one does one's duty by not--not accepting."

"Ah, you don't accept them?" said the young man.

"I can't, my dear Frederick. I would if I could, but I can't."

"The young girl is very pretty," said Winterbourne in a moment.

"Of course she's pretty. But she is very common."

"I see what you mean, of course," said Winterbourne after another pause.

"She has that charming look that they all have," his aunt resumed."I can't think where they pick it up; and she dressesin perfection--no, you don't know how well she dresses.I can't think where they get their taste."

"But, my dear aunt, she is not, after all, a Comanche savage."

"She is a young lady," said Mrs. Costello, "who has an intimacywith her mamma's courier."

"An intimacy with the courier?" the young man demanded.

"Oh, the mother is just as bad! They treat the courierlike a familiar friend--like a gentleman. I shouldn't wonderif he dines with them. Very likely they have never seen a manwith such good manners, such fine clothes, so like a gentleman.He probably corresponds to the young lady's idea of a count.He sits with them in the garden in the evening.I think he smokes."

Winterbourne listened with interest to these disclosures;they helped him to make up his mind about Miss Daisy.Evidently she was rather wild. "Well," he said, "I am nota courier, and yet she was very charming to me."

"You had better have said at first," said Mrs. Costello with dignity,"that you had made her acquaintance."

"We simply met in the garden, and we talked a bit."

"Tout bonnement! And pray what did you say?"

"I said I should take the liberty of introducing her to my admirable aunt."

"I am much obliged to you."

"It was to guarantee my respectability," said Winterbourne.

"And pray who is to guarantee hers?"

"Ah, you are cruel!" said the young man. "She's a very nice young girl."

"You don't say that as if you believed it," Mrs. Costello observed.

"She is completely uncultivated," Winterbourne went on."But she is wonderfully pretty, and, in short, she is very nice.To prove that I believe it, I am going to take her to theChateau de Chillon."

"You two are going off there together? I should say itproved just the contrary. How long had you known her,may I ask, when this interesting project was formed?You haven't been twenty-four hours in the house."

"I have known her half an hour!" said Winterbourne, smiling.

"Dear me!" cried Mrs. Costello. "What a dreadful girl!"

Her nephew was silent for some moments. "You really think, then,"he began earnestly, and with a desire for trustworthy information--"youreally think that--" But he paused again.

"Think what, sir?" said his aunt.

"That she is the sort of young lady who expects a man, sooner or later,to carry her off?"

"I haven't the least idea what such young ladies expect a man to do.But I really think that you had better not meddle with little Americangirls that are uncultivated, as you call them. You have lived too longout of the country. You will be sure to make some great mistake.You are too innocent."

"My dear aunt, I am not so innocent," said Winterbourne,smiling and curling his mustache.

"You are guilty too, then!"

Winterbourne continued to curl his mustache meditatively."You won't let the poor girl know you then?" he asked at last.

"Is it literally true that she is going to the Chateau de Chillon with you?"

"I think that she fully intends it."

"Then, my dear Frederick," said Mrs. Costello, "I must decline the honorof her acquaintance. I am an old woman, but I am not too old, thank Heaven,to be shocked!"

"But don't they all do these things--the young girls in America?"Winterbourne inquired.

Mrs. Costello stared a moment. "I should like to see my granddaughtersdo them!" she declared grimly.

This seemed to throw some light upon the matter, for Winterbourne rememberedto have heard that his pretty cousins in New York were "tremendous flirts."If, therefore, Miss Daisy Miller exceeded the liberal margin allowed tothese young ladies, it was probable that anything might be expected of her.Winterbourne was impatient to see her again, and he was vexed with himselfthat, by instinct, he should not appreciate her justly.

Though he was impatient to see her, he hardly knew what he shouldsay to her about his aunt's refusal to become acquainted with her;but he discovered, promptly enough, that with Miss Daisy Miller therewas no great need of walking on tiptoe. He found her that evening inthe garden, wandering about in the warm starlight like an indolent sylph,and swinging to and fro the largest fan he had ever beheld.It was ten o'clock. He had dined with his aunt, had been sitting withher since dinner, and had just taken leave of her till the morrow.Miss Daisy Miller seemed very glad to see him; she declared itwas the longest evening she had ever passed.

"Have you been all alone?" he asked.

"I have been walking round with mother. But mother gets tiredwalking round," she answered.

"Has she gone to bed?"

"No; she doesn't like to go to bed," said the young girl."She doesn't sleep--not three hours. She says shedoesn't know how she lives. She's dreadfully nervous.I guess she sleeps more than she thinks. She's gone somewhereafter Randolph; she wants to try to get him to go to bed.He doesn't like to go to bed."

"Let us hope she will persuade him," observed Winterbourne.

"She will talk to him all she can; but he doesn't like her to talkto him," said Miss Daisy, opening her fan. "She's going to tryto get Eugenio to talk to him. But he isn't afraid of Eugenio.Eugenio's a splendid courier, but he can't make much impressionon Randolph! I don't believe he'll go to bed before eleven."It appeared that Randolph's vigil was in fact triumphantly prolonged,for Winterbourne strolled about with the young girl for sometime without meeting her mother. "I have been looking roundfor that lady you want to introduce me to," his companion resumed."She's your aunt." Then, on Winterbourne's admitting the factand expressing some curiosity as to how she had learned it,she said she had heard all about Mrs. Costello from the chambermaid.She was very quiet and very comme il faut; she wore white puffs;she spoke to no one, and she never dined at the table d'hote.Every two days she had a headache. "I think that's a lovelydescription, headache and all!" said Miss Daisy, chattering alongin her thin, gay voice. "I want to know her ever so much.I know just what YOUR aunt would be; I know I should like her.She would be very exclusive. I like a lady to be exclusive;I'm dying to be exclusive myself. Well, we ARE exclusive,mother and I. We don't speak to everyone--or they don't speak to us.I suppose it's about the same thing. Anyway, I shall be everso glad to know your aunt."

Winterbourne was embarrassed. "She would be most happy," he said;"but I am afraid those headaches will interfere."

The young girl looked at him through the dusk."But I suppose she doesn't have a headache every day,"she said sympathetically.

Winterbourne was silent a moment. "She tells me she does,"he answered at last, not knowing what to say.

Miss Daisy Miller stopped and stood looking at him. Her prettinesswas still visible in the darkness; she was opening and closing herenormous fan. "She doesn't want to know me!" she said suddenly."Why don't you say so? You needn't be afraid. I'm not afraid!"And she gave a little laugh.

Winterbourne fancied there was a tremor in her voice; he was touched, shocked,mortified by it. "My dear young lady," he protested, "she knows no one.It's her wretched health."

The young girl walked on a few steps, laughing still."You needn't be afraid," she repeated. "Why should she wantto know me?" Then she paused again; she was close to the parapetof the garden, and in front of her was the starlit lake.There was a vague sheen upon its surface, and in the distancewere dimly seen mountain forms. Daisy Miller looked out uponthe mysterious prospect and then she gave another little laugh."Gracious! she IS exclusive!" she said. Winterbourne wonderedwhether she was seriously wounded, and for a moment almostwished that her sense of injury might be such as to make itbecoming in him to attempt to reassure and comfort her.He had a pleasant sense that she would be very approachablefor consolatory purposes. He felt then, for the instant,quite ready to sacrifice his aunt, conversationally; to admitthat she was a proud, rude woman, and to declare that they needn'tmind her. But before he had time to commit himself to thisperilous mixture of gallantry and impiety, the young lady,resuming her walk, gave an exclamation in quite another tone."Well, here's Mother! I guess she hasn't got Randolph to go to bed."The figure of a lady appeared at a distance, very indistinctin the darkness, and advancing with a slow and wavering movement.Suddenly it seemed to pause.

"Are you sure it is your mother? Can you distinguish her in thisthick dusk?" Winterbourne asked.

"Well!" cried Miss Daisy Miller with a laugh; "I guess I know my own mother.And when she has got on my shawl, too! She is always wearing my things."

The lady in question, ceasing to advance, hovered vaguely about the spotat which she had checked her steps.

"I am afraid your mother doesn't see you," said Winterbourne."Or perhaps," he added, thinking, with Miss Miller, the jokepermissible--"perhaps she feels guilty about your shawl."

"Oh, it's a fearful old thing!" the young girl replied serenely."I told her she could wear it. She won't come here because she sees you."

"Ah, then," said Winterbourne, "I had better leave you."

"Oh, no; come on!" urged Miss Daisy Miller.

"I'm afraid your mother doesn't approve of my walking with you."

Miss Miller gave him a serious glance. "It isn't for me;it's for you--that is, it's for HER. Well, I don't know whoit's for! But mother doesn't like any of my gentlemen friends.She's right down timid. She always makes a fuss if I introducea gentleman. But I DO introduce them--almost always.If I didn't introduce my gentlemen friends to Mother,"the young girl added in her little soft, flat monotone,"I shouldn't think I was natural."

"To introduce me," said Winterbourne, "you must know my name."And he proceeded to pronounce it.

"Oh, dear, I can't say all that!" said his companion with a laugh.But by this time they had come up to Mrs. Miller, who, as theydrew near, walked to the parapet of the garden and leaned upon it,looking intently at the lake and turning her back to them."Mother!" said the young girl in a tone of decision.Upon this the elder lady turned round. "Mr. Winterbourne," said MissDaisy Miller, introducing the young man very frankly and prettily."Common," she was, as Mrs. Costello had pronounced her;yet it was a wonder to Winterbourne that, with her commonness,she had a singularly delicate grace.

Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with awandering eye, a very exiguous nose, and a large forehead,decorated with a certain amount of thin, much frizzled hair.Like her daughter, Mrs. Miller was dressed with extreme elegance;she had enormous diamonds in her ears. So far as Winterbournecould observe, she gave him no greeting--she certainly was notlooking at him. Daisy was near her, pulling her shawl straight."What are you doing, poking round here?" this young lady inquired,but by no means with that harshness of accent which her choiceof words may imply.

"I don't know," said her mother, turning toward the lake again.

"I shouldn't think you'd want that shawl!" Daisy exclaimed.

"Well I do!" her mother answered with a little laugh.

"Did you get Randolph to go to bed?" asked the young girl.

"No; I couldn't induce him," said Mrs. Miller very gently."He wants to talk to the waiter. He likes to talk to that waiter."

I was telling Mr. Winterbourne," the young girl went on;and to the young man's ear her tone might have indicatedthat she had been uttering his name all her life.

"Oh, yes!" said Winterbourne; "I have the pleasure of knowing your son."

Randolph's mamma was silent; she turned her attention to the lake.But at last she spoke. "Well, I don't see how he lives!"

"Anyhow, it isn't so bad as it was at Dover," said Daisy Miller.

"And what occurred at Dover?" Winterbourne asked.

"He wouldn't go to bed at all. I guess he sat up all nightin the public parlor. He wasn't in bed at twelve o'clock:I know that."

"It was half-past twelve," declared Mrs. Miller with mild emphasis.

"Does he sleep much during the day?" Winterbourne demanded.

"I guess he doesn't sleep much," Daisy rejoined.

"I wish he would!" said her mother. "It seems as if he couldn't."

"I think he's real tiresome," Daisy pursued.

Then, for some moments, there was silence. "Well, Daisy Miller,"said the elder lady, presently, "I shouldn't think you'd wantto talk against your own brother!"

"Well, he IS tiresome, Mother," said Daisy, quite withoutthe asperity of a retort.

"He's only nine," urged Mrs. Miller.

"Well, he wouldn't go to that castle," said the young girl."I'm going there with Mr. Winterbourne."

To this announcement, very placidly made, Daisy's mamma offeredno response. Winterbourne took for granted that she deeplydisapproved of the projected excursion; but he said to himselfthat she was a simple, easily managed person, and that a fewdeferential protestations would take the edge from her displeasure."Yes," he began; "your daughter has kindly allowed me the honorof being her guide."

Mrs. Miller's wandering eyes attached themselves, with a sort ofappealing air, to Daisy, who, however, strolled a few steps farther,gently humming to herself. "I presume you will go in the cars,"said her mother.

"Yes, or in the boat," said Winterbourne.

"Well, of course, I don't know," Mrs. Miller rejoined."I have never been to that castle."

"It is a pity you shouldn't go," said Winterbourne,beginning to feel reassured as to her opposition.And yet he was quite prepared to find that, as a matter of course,she meant to accompany her daughter.

"We've been thinking ever so much about going," she pursued;"but it seems as if we couldn't. Of course Daisy--she wantsto go round. But there's a lady here--I don't know her name--she says she shouldn't think we'd want to go to see castlesHERE; she should think we'd want to wait till we gotto Italy. It seems as if there would be so many there,"continued Mrs. Miller with an air of increasing confidence."Of course we only want to see the principal ones.We visited several in England," she presently added.

"Ah yes! in England there are beautiful castles," said Winterbourne."But Chillon here, is very well worth seeing."

"Well, if Daisy feels up to it--" said Mrs. Miller, in a toneimpregnated with a sense of the magnitude of the enterprise."It seems as if there was nothing she wouldn't undertake."

"Oh, I think she'll enjoy it!" Winterbourne declared.And he desired more and more to make it a certainty that he wasto have the privilege of a tete-a-tete with the young lady,who was still strolling along in front of them, softly vocalizing."You are not disposed, madam," he inquired, "to undertake it yourself?"

Daisy's mother looked at him an instant askance, and then walkedforward in silence. Then--"I guess she had better go alone,"she said simply. Winterbourne observed to himself that thiswas a very different type of maternity from that of the vigilantmatrons who massed themselves in the forefront of socialintercourse in the dark old city at the other end of the lake.But his meditations were interrupted by hearing his name verydistinctly pronounced by Mrs. Miller's unprotected daughter.

"Mr. Winterbourne!" murmured Daisy.

"Mademoiselle!" said the young man.

"Don't you want to take me out in a boat?"

"At present?" he asked.

"Of course!" said Daisy.

"Well, Annie Miller!" exclaimed her mother.

"I beg you, madam, to let her go," said Winterbourne ardently;for he had never yet enjoyed the sensation of guidingthrough the summer starlight a skiff freighted with a freshand beautiful young girl.

"I shouldn't think she'd want to," said her mother."I should think she'd rather go indoors."

"I'm sure Mr. Winterbourne wants to take me," Daisy declared."He's so awfully devoted!"

"I will row you over to Chillon in the starlight."

"I don't believe it!" said Daisy.

"Well!" ejaculated the elder lady again.

"You haven't spoken to me for half an hour," her daughter went on.

"I have been having some very pleasant conversation withyour mother," said Winterbourne.

"Well, I want you to take me out in a boat!" Daisy repeated. They hadall stopped, and she had turned round and was looking at Winterbourne.Her face wore a charming smile, her pretty eyes were gleaming,she was swinging her great fan about. No; it's impossible to be prettierthan that, thought Winterbourne.

"There are half a dozen boats moored at that landing place," he said,pointing to certain steps which descended from the garden to the lake."If you will do me the honor to accept my arm, we will go and selectone of them."

Daisy stood there smiling; she threw back her head and gave a little,light laugh. "I like a gentleman to be formal!" she declared.

"I assure you it's a formal offer."

"I was bound I would make you say something," Daisy went on.

"You see, it's not very difficult," said Winterbourne."But I am afraid you are chaffing me."

"I think not, sir," remarked Mrs. Miller very gently.

"Do, then, let me give you a row," he said to the young girl.

"It's quite lovely, the way you say that!" cried Daisy.

"It will be still more lovely to do it."

"Yes, it would be lovely!" said Daisy. But she made no movementto accompany him; she only stood there laughing.

"I should think you had better find out what time it is,"interposed her mother.

"It is eleven o'clock, madam," said a voice, with a foreign accent,out of the neighboring darkness; and Winterbourne, turning, perceivedthe florid personage who was in attendance upon the two ladies.He had apparently just approached.

"Oh, Eugenio," said Daisy, "I am going out in a boat!"

Eugenio bowed. "At eleven o'clock, mademoiselle?"

"I am going with Mr. Winterbourne--this very minute."

"Do tell her she can't," said Mrs. Miller to the courier.

"I think you had better not go out in a boat, mademoiselle," Eugenio declared.

Winterbourne wished to Heaven this pretty girl were not so familiarwith her courier; but he said nothing.

"I suppose you don't think it's proper!" Daisy exclaimed."Eugenio doesn't think anything's proper."

"I am at your service," said Winterbourne.

"Does mademoiselle propose to go alone?" asked Eugenio of Mrs. Miller.

"Oh, no; with this gentleman!" answered Daisy's mamma.

The courier looked for a moment at Winterbourne--the latterthought he was smiling--and then, solemnly, with a bow,"As mademoiselle pleases!" he said.

"Oh, I hoped you would make a fuss!" said Daisy."I don't care to go now."

"I myself shall make a fuss if you don't go," said Winterbourne.

"That's all I want--a little fuss!" And the young girl beganto laugh again.

"Mr. Randolph has gone to bed!" the courier announced frigidly.

"Oh, Daisy; now we can go!" said Mrs. Miller.

Daisy turned away from Winterbourne, looking at him,smiling and fanning herself. "Good night," she said;"I hope you are disappointed, or disgusted, or something!"

He looked at her, taking the hand she offered him."I am puzzled," he answered.

"Well, I hope it won't keep you awake!" she said very smartly;and, under the escort of the privileged Eugenio, the two ladiespassed toward the house.

Winterbourne stood looking after them; he was indeed puzzled.He lingered beside the lake for a quarter of an hour, turning overthe mystery of the young girl's sudden familiarities and caprices.But the only very definite conclusion he came to was that he shouldenjoy deucedly "going off" with her somewhere.

Two days afterward he went off with her to the Castle of Chillon.He waited for her in the large hall of the hotel, where the couriers,the servants, the foreign tourists, were lounging about and staring.It was not the place he should have chosen, but she had appointed it.She came tripping downstairs, buttoning her long gloves,squeezing her folded parasol against her pretty figure,dressed in the perfection of a soberly elegant traveling costume.Winterbourne was a man of imagination and, as our ancestorsused to say, sensibility; as he looked at her dress and,on the great staircase, her little rapid, confiding step,he felt as if there were something romantic going forward.He could have believed he was going to elope with her.He passed out with her among all the idle people that wereassembled there; they were all looking at her very hard;she had begun to chatter as soon as she joined him.Winterbourne's preference had been that they should beconveyed to Chillon in a carriage; but she expressed a livelywish to go in the little steamer; she declared that she hada passion for steamboats. There was always such a lovelybreeze upon the water, and you saw such lots of people.The sail was not long, but Winterbourne's companion found timeto say a great many things. To the young man himself theirlittle excursion was so much of an escapade--an adventure--that, even allowing for her habitual sense of freedom,he had some expectation of seeing her regard it in the same way.But it must be confessed that, in this particular,he was disappointed. Daisy Miller was extremely animated,she was in charming spirits; but she was apparently not atall excited; she was not fluttered; she avoided neither his eyesnor those of anyone else; she blushed neither when she lookedat him nor when she felt that people were looking at her.People continued to look at her a great deal, and Winterbourne tookmuch satisfaction in his pretty companion's distinguished air.He had been a little afraid that she would talk loud, laugh overmuch,and even, perhaps, desire to move about the boat a good deal.But he quite forgot his fears; he sat smiling, with hiseyes upon her face, while, without moving from her place,she delivered herself of a great number of original reflections.It was the most charming garrulity he had ever heard.he had assented to the idea that she was "common"; but was she so,after all, or was he simply getting used to her commonness?Her conversation was chiefly of what metaphysicians term theobjective cast, but every now and then it took a subjective turn.

"What on EARTH are you so grave about?" she suddenly demanded,fixing her agreeable eyes upon Winterbourne's.

"Am I grave?" he asked. "I had an idea I was grinning from ear to ear."

"You look as if you were taking me to a funeral. If that's a grin,your ears are very near together."

"Should you like me to dance a hornpipe on the deck?"

"Pray do, and I'll carry round your hat. It will pay the expensesof our journey."

"I never was better pleased in my life," murmured Winterbourne.

She looked at him a moment and then burst into a little laugh."I like to make you say those things! You're a queer mixture!"

In the castle, after they had landed, the subjective elementdecidedly prevailed. Daisy tripped about the vaulted chambers,rustled her skirts in the corkscrew staircases, flirted back witha pretty little cry and a shudder from the edge of the oubliettes,and turned a singularly well-shaped ear to everything thatWinterbourne told her about the place. But he saw that shecared very little for feudal antiquities and that the duskytraditions of Chillon made but a slight impression upon her.They had the good fortune to have been able to walk about withoutother companionship than that of the custodian; and Winterbournearranged with this functionary that they should not be hurried--that they should linger and pause wherever they chose. The custodianinterpreted the bargain generously--Winterbourne, on his side,had been generous--and ended by leaving them quite to themselves.Miss Miller's observations were not remarkable for logical consistency;for anything she wanted to say she was sure to find a pretext.She found a great many pretexts in the rugged embrasures of Chillonfor asking Winterbourne sudden questions about himself--his family,his previous history, his tastes, his habits, his intentions--and forsupplying information upon corresponding points in her own personality.Of her own tastes, habits, and intentions Miss Miller was preparedto give the most definite, and indeed the most favorable account.

"Well, I hope you know enough!" she said to her companion,after he had told her the history of the unhappy Bonivard."I never saw a man that knew so much!" The history of Bonivardhad evidently, as they say, gone into one ear and out of the other.But Daisy went on to say that she wished Winterbourne would travelwith them and "go round" with them; they might know something,in that case. "Don't you want to come and teach Randolph?" she asked.Winterbourne said that nothing could possibly please him so much,but that he unfortunately other occupations. "Other occupations?I don't believe it!" said Miss Daisy. "What do you mean?You are not in business." The young man admitted that he was notin business; but he had engagements which, even within a day or two,would force him to go back to Geneva. "Oh, bother!" she said;"I don't believe it!" and she began to talk about something else.But a few moments later, when he was pointing out to her the prettydesign of an antique fireplace, she broke out irrelevantly,"You don't mean to say you are going back to Geneva?"

"It is a melancholy fact that I shall have to return to Geneva tomorrow."

"Well, Mr. Winterbourne," said Daisy, "I think you're horrid!"

"Oh, don't say such dreadful things!" said Winterbourne--"justat the last!"

"The last!" cried the young girl; "I call it the first. I have halfa mind to leave you here and go straight back to the hotel alone."And for the next ten minutes she did nothing but call him horrid.Poor Winterbourne was fairly bewildered; no young lady had as yet donehim the honor to be so agitated by the announcement of his movements.His companion, after this, ceased to pay any attention to thecuriosities of Chillon or the beauties of the lake; she opened fireupon the mysterious charmer in Geneva whom she appeared to haveinstantly taken it for granted that he was hurrying back to see.How did Miss Daisy Miller know that there was a charmer in Geneva?Winterbourne, who denied the existence of such a person,was quite unable to discover, and he was divided between amazementat the rapidity of her induction and amusement at the franknessof her persiflage. She seemed to him, in all this,an extraordinary mixture of innocence and crudity. "Does she neverallow you more than three days at a time?" asked Daisy ironically."Doesn't she give you a vacation in summer? There's no one so hardworked but they can get leave to go off somewhere at this season.I suppose, if you stay another day, she'll come after you in the boat.Do wait over till Friday, and I will go down to the landing to seeher arrive!" Winterbourne began to think he had been wrong to feeldisappointed in the temper in which the young lady had embarked.If he had missed the personal accent, the personal accent wasnow making its appearance. It sounded very distinctly, at last,in her telling him she would stop "teasing" him if he would promiseher solemnly to come down to Rome in the winter.

"That's not a difficult promise to make," said Winterbourne."My aunt has taken an apartment in Rome for the winter and hasalready asked me to come and see her."

"I don't want you to come for your aunt," said Daisy; "I want youto come for me." And this was the only allusion that the youngman was ever to hear her make to his invidious kinswoman.He declared that, at any rate, he would certainly come.After this Daisy stopped teasing. Winterbourne took a carriage,and they drove back to Vevey in the dusk; the young girlwas very quiet.

In the evening Winterbourne mentioned to Mrs. Costello that he had spentthe afternoon at Chillon with Miss Daisy Miller.

"The Americans--of the courier?" asked this lady.

"Ah, happily," said Winterbourne, "the courier stayed at home."

"She went with you all alone?"

"All alone."

Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her smelling bottle."And that," she exclaimed, "is the young person whom you wantedme to know!"

PART II

Winterbourne, who had returned to Geneva the day after hisexcursion to Chillon, went to Rome toward the end of January.His aunt had been established there for several weeks,and he had received a couple of letters from her."Those people you were so devoted to last summer at Veveyhave turned up here, courier and all," she wrote."They seem to have made several acquaintances, but the couriercontinues to be the most intime. The young lady, however,is also very intimate with some third-rate Italians,with whom she rackets about in a way that makes much talk.Bring me that pretty novel of Cherbuliez's--Paule Mere--and don't come later than the 23rd."

In the natural course of events, Winterbourne, on arriving in Rome,would presently have ascertained Mrs. Miller's address at the Americanbanker's and have gone to pay his compliments to Miss Daisy."After what happened at Vevey, I think I may certainly call upon them,"he said to Mrs. Costello.

"If, after what happens--at Vevey and everywhere--you desire to keep upthe acquaintance, you are very welcome. Of course a man may know everyone.Men are welcome to the privilege!"

"Pray what is it that happens--here, for instance?" Winterbourne demanded.

"The girl goes about alone with her foreigners. As to whathappens further, you must apply elsewhere for information.She has picked up half a dozen of the regular Romanfortune hunters, and she takes them about to people's houses.When she comes to a party she brings with her a gentlemanwith a good deal of manner and a wonderful mustache."

"And where is the mother?"

"I haven't the least idea. They are very dreadful people."

Winterbourne meditated a moment. "They are very ignorant--very innocent only. Depend upon it they are not bad."

"They are hopelessly vulgar," said Mrs. Costello. "Whether or no beinghopelessly vulgar is being 'bad' is a question for the metaphysicians.They are bad enough to dislike, at any rate; and for this short lifethat is quite enough."

The news that Daisy Miller was surrounded by half a dozen wonderfulmustaches checked Winterbourne's impulse to go straightway to see her.He had, perhaps, not definitely flattered himself that he had madean ineffaceable impression upon her heart, but he was annoyed at hearingof a state of affairs so little in harmony with an image that had latelyflitted in and out of his own meditations; the image of a very prettygirl looking out of an old Roman window and asking herself urgentlywhen Mr. Winterbourne would arrive. If, however, he determined to waita little before reminding Miss Miller of his claims to her consideration,he went very soon to call upon two or three other friends.One of these friends was an American lady who had spent severalwinters at Geneva, where she had placed her children at school.She was a very accomplished woman, and she lived in the Via Gregoriana.Winterbourne found her in a little crimson drawing room on a third floor;the room was filled with southern sunshine. He had not been there ten minuteswhen the servant came in, announcing "Madame Mila!" This announcementwas presently followed by the entrance of little Randolph Miller,who stopped in the middle of the room and stood staring at Winterbourne.An instant later his pretty sister crossed the threshold; and then,after a considerable interval, Mrs. Miller slowly advanced.

"I know you!" said Randolph.

"I'm sure you know a great many things," exclaimed Winterbourne,taking him by the hand. "How is your education coming on?"

Daisy was exchanging greetings very prettily with her hostess,but when she heard Winterbourne's voice she quickly turned her head."Well, I declare!" she said.

"I told you I should come, you know," Winterbourne rejoined, smiling.

"Well, I didn't believe it," said Miss Daisy.

"I am much obliged to you," laughed the young man.

"You might have come to see me!" said Daisy.

"I arrived only yesterday."

"I don't believe tte that!" the young girl declared.

Winterbourne turned with a protesting smile to her mother, but thislady evaded his glance, and, seating herself, fixed her eyes uponher son. "We've got a bigger place than this," said Randolph."It's all gold on the walls."

Mrs. Miller turned uneasily in her chair. "I told you if I were to bring you,you would say something!" she murmured.

"I told YOU!" Randolph exclaimed. "I tell YOU, sir!"he added jocosely, giving Winterbourne a thump on the knee."It IS bigger, too!"

Daisy had entered upon a lively conversation with her hostess;Winterbourne judged it becoming to address a few words to her mother."I hope you have been well since we parted at Vevey," he said.

Mrs. Miller now certainly looked at him--at his chin."Not very well, sir," she answered.

"She's got the dyspepsia," said Randolph. "I've got it too.Father's got it. I've got it most!"

This announcement, instead of embarrassing Mrs. Miller,seemed to relieve her. "I suffer from the liver," she said."I think it's this climate; it's less bracing than Schenectady,especially in the winter season. I don't know whether you knowwe reside at Schenectady. I was saying to Daisy that I certainlyhadn't found any one like Dr. Davis, and I didn't believe I should.Oh, at Schenectady he stands first; they think everything of him.He has so much to do, and yet there was nothing he wouldn't do for me.He said he never saw anything like my dyspepsia, but he wasbound to cure it. I'm sure there was nothing he wouldn't try.He was just going to try something new when we came off.Mr. Miller wanted Daisy to see Europe for herself. But I wrote toMr. Miller that it seems as if I couldn't get on without Dr. Davis.At Schenectady he stands at the very top; and there's a great dealof sickness there, too. It affects my sleep."

Winterbourne had a good deal of pathological gossip with Dr. Davis's patient,during which Daisy chattered unremittingly to her own companion.The young man asked Mrs. Miller how she was pleased with Rome."Well, I must say I am disappointed," she answered. "We had heard so muchabout it; I suppose we had heard too much. But we couldn't help that.We had been led to expect something different."

"Ah, wait a little, and you will become very fond of it," said Winterbourne.

"I hate it worse and worse every day!" cried Randolph.

"You are like the infant Hannibal," said Winterbourne.

"No, I ain't!" Randolph declared at a venture.

"You are not much like an infant," said his mother. "But we haveseen places," she resumed, "that I should put a long way before Rome."And in reply to Winterbourne's interrogation, "There's Zurich,"she concluded, "I think Zurich is lovely; and we hadn't heard halfso much about it."

"The best place we've seen is the City of Richmond!" said Randolph.

"He means the ship," his mother explained. "We crossed in that ship.Randolph had a good time on the City of Richmond."

"It's the best place I've seen," the child repeated."Only it was turned the wrong way."

"Well, we've got to turn the right way some time,"said Mrs. Miller with a little laugh. Winterbourne expressedthe hope that her daughter at least found some gratificationin Rome, and she declared that Daisy was quite carried away."It's on account of the society--the society's splendid.She goes round everywhere; she has made a great numberof acquaintances. Of course she goes round more than I do.I must say they have been very sociable; they have takenher right in. And then she knows a great many gentlemen.Oh, she thinks there's nothing like Rome. Of course,it's a great deal pleasanter for a young lady if she knowsplenty of gentlemen."

By this time Daisy had turned her attention again to Winterbourne."I've been telling Mrs. Walker how mean you were!" the young girl announced.

"And what is the evidence you have offered?" asked Winterbourne,rather annoyed at Miss Miller's want of appreciation of the zeal ofan admirer who on his way down to Rome had stopped neither at Bolognanor at Florence, simply because of a certain sentimental impatience.He remembered that a cynical compatriot had once told him thatAmerican women--the pretty ones, and this gave a largeness to the axiom--were at once the most exacting in the world and the least endowedwith a sense of indebtedness.

"Why, you were awfully mean at Vevey," said Daisy."You wouldn't do anything. You wouldn't stay there whenI asked you."

"My dearest young lady," cried Winterbourne, with eloquence,"have I come all the way to Rome to encounter your reproaches?"

"Just hear him say that!" said Daisy to her hostess, giving a twist to a bowon this lady's dress. "Did you ever hear anything so quaint?"

"So quaint, my dear?" murmured Mrs. Walker in the tone of apartisan of Winterbourne.

"Well, I don't know," said Daisy, fingering Mrs. Walker's ribbons."Mrs. Walker, I want to tell you something."

"Mother-r," interposed Randolph, with his rough ends to his words,"I tell you you've got to go. Eugenio'll raise--something!"

"I'm not afraid of Eugenio," said Daisy with a toss of her head."Look here, Mrs. Walker," she went on, "you know I'm comingto your party."

"I am delighted to hear it."

"I've got a lovely dress!"

"I am very sure of that."

"But I want to ask a favor--permission to bring a friend."

"I shall be happy to see any of your friends," said Mrs. Walker,turning with a smile to Mrs. Miller.

"Oh, they are not my friends," answered Daisy's mamma,smiling shyly in her own fashion. "I never spoke to them."

"It's an intimate friend of mine--Mr. Giovanelli," said Daisy without a tremorin her clear little voice or a shadow on her brilliant little face.

Mrs. Walker was silent a moment; she gave a rapid glance at Winterbourne."I shall be glad to see Mr. Giovanelli," she then said.

"He's an Italian," Daisy pursued with the prettiest serenity."He's a great friend of mine; he's the handsomest man in the world--except Mr. Winterbourne! He knows plenty of Italians, but he wantsto know some Americans. He thinks ever so much of Americans.He's tremendously clever. He's perfectly lovely!"

It was settled that this brilliant personage should be brought toMrs. Walker's party, and then Mrs. Miller prepared to take her leave."I guess we'll go back to the hotel," she said.

"You may go back to the hotel, Mother, but I'm going to takea walk," said Daisy.

"She's going to walk with Mr. Giovanelli," Randolph proclaimed.

"I am going to the Pincio," said Daisy, smiling.

"Alone, my dear--at this hour?" Mrs. Walker asked.The afternoon was drawing to a close--it was the hour forthe throng of carriages and of contemplative pedestrians."I don't think it's safe, my dear," said Mrs. Walker.

"Neither do I," subjoined Mrs. Miller. "You'll get the fever,as sure as you live. Remember what Dr. Davis told you!"

"Give her some medicine before she goes," said Randolph.

The company had risen to its feet; Daisy, still showing her pretty teeth,bent over and kissed her hostess. "Mrs. Walker, you are too perfect,"she said. "I'm not going alone; I am going to meet a friend."

"Your friend won't keep you from getting the fever,"Mrs. Miller observed.

"Is it Mr. Giovanelli?" asked the hostess.

Winterbourne was watching the young girl; at this question hisattention quickened. She stood there, smiling and smoothingher bonnet ribbons; she glanced at Winterbourne. Then, while sheglanced and smiled, she answered, without a shade of hesitation,"Mr. Giovanelli--the beautiful Giovanelli."

"My dear young friend," said Mrs. Walker, taking her hand pleadingly,"don't walk off to the Pincio at this hour to meet a beautiful Italian."

"Well, he speaks English," said Mrs. Miller.

"Gracious me!" Daisy exclaimed, "I don't to do anything improper.There's an easy way to settle it." She continued to glance at Winterbourne."The Pincio is only a hundred yards distant; and if Mr. Winterbournewere as polite as he pretends, he would offer to walk with me!"

Winterbourne's politeness hastened to affirm itself,and the young girl gave him gracious leave to accompany her.They passed downstairs before her mother, and at the door Winterbourneperceived Mrs. Miller's carriage drawn up, with the ornamentalcourier whose acquaintance he had made at Vevey seated within."Goodbye, Eugenio!" cried Daisy; "I'm going to take a walk."The distance from the Via Gregoriana to the beautifulgarden at the other end of the Pincian Hill is, in fact,rapidly traversed. As the day was splendid, however, and theconcourse of vehicles, walkers, and loungers numerous,the young Americans found their progress much delayed.This fact was highly agreeable to Winterbourne, in spite of hisconsciousness of his singular situation. The slow-moving, idlygazing Roman crowd bestowed much attention upon the extremelypretty young foreign lady who was passing through it upon his arm;and he wondered what on earth had been in Daisy's mind when sheproposed to expose herself, unattended, to its appreciation.His own mission, to her sense, apparently, was to consignher to the hands of Mr. Giovanelli; but Winterbourne, at onceannoyed and gratified, resolved that he would do no such thing.

"Why haven't you been to see me?" asked Daisy. "You can'tget out of that."

"I have had the honor of telling you that I have only just steppedout of the train."

"You must have stayed in the train a good while after it stopped!"cried the young girl with her little laugh. "I suppose you were asleep.You have had time to go to see Mrs. Walker."

"I knew Mrs. Walker--" Winterbourne began to explain.

"I know where you knew her. You knew her at Geneva.She told me so. Well, you knew me at Vevey. That's just as good.So you ought to have come." She asked him no other questionthan this; she began to prattle about her own affairs."We've got splendid rooms at the hotel; Eugenio says they'rethe best rooms in Rome. We are going to stay all winter,if we don't die of the fever; and I guess we'll stay then.It's a great deal nicer than I thought; I thought it wouldbe fearfully quiet; I was sure it would be awfully poky.I was sure we should be going round all the time with one of thosedreadful old men that explain about the pictures and things.But we only had about a week of that, and now I'm enjoying myself.I know ever so many people, and they are all so charming.The society's extremely select. There are all kinds--English,and Germans, and Italians. I think I like the English best.I like their style of conversation. But there are somelovely Americans. I never saw anything so hospitable.There's something or other every day. There's not much dancing;but I must say I never thought dancing was everything.I was always fond of conversation. I guess I shallhave plenty at Mrs. Walker's, her rooms are so small."When they had passed the gate of the Pincian Gardens,Miss Miller began to wonder where Mr. Giovanelli might be."We had better go straight to that place in front," she said,"where you look at the view."

"I certainly shall not help you to find him," Winterbourne declared.

"Then I shall find him without you," cried Miss Daisy.

"You certainly won't leave me!" cried Winterbourne.

She burst into her little laugh. "Are you afraid you'll get lost--or run over? But there's Giovanelli, leaning against that tree.He's staring at the women in the carriages: did you ever seeanything so cool?"

Winterbourne perceived at some distance a little man standing withfolded arms nursing his cane. He had a handsome face, an artfullypoised hat, a glass in one eye, and a nosegay in his buttonhole.Winterbourne looked at him a moment and then said, "Do you meanto speak to that man?"

"Do I mean to speak to him? Why, you don't suppose I meanto communicate by signs?"

"Pray understand, then," said Winterbourne, "that I intendto remain with you."

Daisy stopped and looked at him, without a sign of troubledconsciousness in her face, with nothing but the presence of hercharming eyes and her happy dimples. "Well, she's a cool one!"thought the young man.

"I don't like the way you say that," said Daisy."It's too imperious."

"I beg your pardon if I say it wrong. The main point is to giveyou an idea of my meaning."

The young girl looked at him more gravely, but with eyes that wereprettier than ever. "I have never allowed a gentleman to dictate to me,or to interfere with anything I do."

"I think you have made a mistake," said Winterbourne."You should sometimes listen to a gentleman--the right one."

Daisy began to laugh again. "I do nothing but listen to gentlemen!"she exclaimed. "Tell me if Mr. Giovanelli is the right one?"

The gentleman with the nosegay in his bosom had now perceived our two friends,and was approaching the young girl with obsequious rapidity. He bowed toWinterbourne as well as to the latter's companion; he had a brilliant smile,an intelligent eye; Winterbourne thought him not a bad-looking fellow.But he nevertheless said to Daisy, "No, he's not the right one."

Daisy evidently had a natural talent for performing introductions;she mentioned the name of each of her companions to the other.She strolled alone with one of them on each side of her; Mr. Giovanelli,who spoke English very cleverly--Winterbourne afterward learnedthat he had practiced the idiom upon a great many American heiresses--addressed her a great deal of very polite nonsense; he was extremelyurbane, and the young American, who said nothing, reflected uponthat profundity of Italian cleverness which enables people to appearmore gracious in proportion as they are more acutely disappointed.Giovanelli, of course, had counted upon something more intimate;he had not bargained for a party of three. But he kept histemper in a manner which suggested far-stretching intentions.Winterbourne flattered himself that he had taken his measure."He is not a gentleman," said the young American;"he is only a clever imitation of one. He is a music master,or a penny-a-liner, or a third-rate artist. D__n his good looks!"Mr. Giovanelli had certainly a very pretty face; but Winterbourne felta superior indignation at his own lovely fellow countrywoman's notknowing the difference between a spurious gentleman and a real one.Giovanelli chattered and jested and made himself wonderfully agreeable.It was true that, if he was an imitation, the imitation was brilliant."Nevertheless," Winterbourne said to himself, "a nice girl ought to know!"And then he came back to the question whether this was, in fact,a nice girl. Would a nice girl, even allowing for her being a littleAmerican flirt, make a rendezvous with a presumably low-lived foreigner?The rendezvous in this case, indeed, had been in broad daylight and inthe most crowded corner of Rome, but was it not impossible to regardthe choice of these circumstances as a proof of extreme cynicism?Singular though it may seem, Winterbourne was vexed that the young girl,in joining her amoroso, should not appear more impatientof his own company, and he was vexed because of his inclination.It was impossible to regard her as a perfectly well-conductedyoung lady; she was wanting in a certain indispensable delicacy.It would therefore simplify matters greatly to be able to treather as the object of one of those sentiments which are called byromancers "lawless passions." That she should seem to wish to get ridof him would help him to think more lightly of her, and to be ableto think more lightly of her would make her much less perplexing.But Daisy, on this occasion, continued to present herself as aninscrutable combination of audacity and innocence.

She had been walking some quarter of an hour, attended by hertwo cavaliers, and responding in a tone of very childish gaiety,as it seemed to Winterbourne, to the pretty speechesof Mr. Giovanelli, when a carriage that had detacheditself from the revolving train drew up beside the path.At the same moment Winterbourne perceived that his friendMrs. Walker--the lady whose house he had lately left--was seated in the vehicle and was beckoning to him.Leaving Miss Miller's side, he hastened to obey her summons.Mrs. Walker was flushed; she wore an excited air."It is really too dreadful," she said. "That girl must not dothis sort of thing. She must not walk here with you two men.Fifty people have noticed her."

Winterbourne raised his eyebrows. "I think it's a pity to maketoo much fuss about it."

"It's a pity to let the girl ruin herself!"

"She is very innocent," said Winterbourne.

"She's very crazy!" cried Mrs. Walker. "Did you ever seeanything so imbecile as her mother? After you had all leftme just now, I could not sit still for thinking of it.It seemed too pitiful, not even to attempt to save her.I ordered the carriage and put on my bonnet, and came hereas quickly as possible. Thank Heaven I have found you!"

"What do you propose to do with us?" asked Winterbourne, smiling.

"To ask her to get in, to drive her about here for half an hour,so that the world may see she is not running absolutely wild,and then to take her safely home."

"I don't think it's a very happy thought," said Winterbourne;"but you can try."

Mrs. Walker tried. The young man went in pursuit of Miss Miller,who had simply nodded and smiled at his interlocutor in the carriageand had gone her way with her companion. Daisy, on learningthat Mrs. Walker wished to speak to her, retraced her stepswith a perfect good grace and with Mr. Giovanelli at her side.She declared that she was delighted to have a chance to present thisgentleman to Mrs. Walker. She immediately achieved the introduction,and declared that she had never in her life seen anything so lovelyas Mrs. Walker's carriage rug.

"I am glad you admire it," said this lady, smiling sweetly."Will you get in and let me put it over you?"

"Oh, no, thank you," said Daisy. "I shall admire it much more as I see youdriving round with it."

"Do get in and drive with me!" said Mrs. Walker.

"That would be charming, but it's so enchanting just as I am!"and Daisy gave a brilliant glance at the gentlemen on eitherside of her.

"It may be enchanting, dear child, but it is not the custom here,"urged Mrs. Walker, leaning forward in her victoria, with herhands devoutly clasped.

"Well, it ought to be, then!" said Daisy. "If I didn't walkI should expire."

"You should walk with your mother, dear," cried the ladyfrom Geneva, losing patience.

"With my mother dear!" exclaimed the young girl. Winterbourne saw that shescented interference. "My mother never walked ten steps in her life.And then, you know," she added with a laugh, "I am more than five years old."

"You are old enough to be more reasonable. You are old enough,dear Miss Miller, to be talked about."

Daisy looked at Mrs. Walker, smiling intensely. "Talked about?What do you mean?"

"Come into my carriage, and I will tell you."

Daisy turned her quickened glance again from one of the gentlemen beside herto the other. Mr. Giovanelli was bowing to and fro, rubbing down his glovesand laughing very agreeably; Winterbourne thought it a most unpleasant scene."I don't think I want to know what you mean," said Daisy presently."I don't think I should like it."

Winterbourne wished that Mrs. Walker would tuck in her carriage rug and driveaway, but this lady did not enjoy being defied, as she afterward told him."Should you prefer being thought a very reckless girl?" she demanded.

"Gracious!" exclaimed Daisy. She looked again at Mr. Giovanelli,then she turned to Winterbourne. There was a little pink flush inher cheek; she was tremendously pretty. "Does Mr. Winterbourne think,"she asked slowly, smiling, throwing back her head, and glancingat him from head to foot, "that, to save my reputation, I oughtto get into the carriage?"

Winterbourne colored; for an instant he hesitated greatly.It seemed so strange to hear her speak that way of her "reputation."But he himself, in fact, must speak in accordance with gallantry.The finest gallantry, here, was simply to tell her the truth;and the truth, for Winterbourne, as the few indications Ihave been able to give have made him known to the reader,was that Daisy Miller should take Mrs. Walker's advice.He looked at her exquisite prettiness, and then he said,very gently, "I think you should get into the carriage."

Daisy gave a violent laugh. "I never heard anything so stiff!If this is improper, Mrs. Walker," she pursued, "then I am all improper,and you must give me up. Goodbye; I hope you'll have a lovely ride!"and, with Mr. Giovanelli, who made a triumphantly obsequious salute,she turned away.

Mrs. Walker sat looking after her, and there were tears inMrs. Walker's eyes. "Get in here, sir," she said to Winterbourne,indicating the place beside her. The young man answered that he feltbound to accompany Miss Miller, whereupon Mrs. Walker declared thatif he refused her this favor she would never speak to him again.She was evidently in earnest. Winterbourne overtook Daisy andher companion, and, offering the young girl his hand, told herthat Mrs. Walker had made an imperious claim upon his society.He expected that in answer she would say something rather free,something to commit herself still further to that "recklessness"from which Mrs. Walker had so charitably endeavored to dissuade her.But she only shook his hand, hardly looking at him, while Mr. Giovanellibade him farewell with a too emphatic flourish of the hat.

Winterbourne was not in the best possible humor as he took his seat inMrs. Walker's victoria. "That was not clever of you," he said candidly,while the vehicle mingled again with the throng of carriages.

"In such a case," his companion answered, "I don't wish to be clever;I wish to be EARNEST!"

"Well, your earnestness has only offended her and put her off."

"It has happened very well," said Mrs. Walker. "If she is so perfectlydetermined to compromise herself, the sooner one knows it the better;one can act accordingly."

"I suspect she meant no harm," Winterbourne rejoined.

"So I thought a month ago. But she has been going too far."

"What has she been doing?"

"Everything that is not done here. Flirting with any man she could pick up;sitting in corners with mysterious Italians; dancing all the eveningwith the same partners; receiving visits at eleven o'clock at night.Her mother goes away when visitors come."

"But her brother," said Winterbourne, laughing, "sits up till midnight."

"He must be edified by what he sees. I'm told that at their hoteleveryone is talking about her, and that a smile goes round amongall the servants when a gentleman comes and asks for Miss Miller."

"The servants be hanged!" said Winterbourne angrily."The poor girl's only fault," he presently added, "is that sheis very uncultivated."

"She is naturally indelicate," Mrs. Walker declared.

"Take that example this morning. How long had you known her at Vevey?"

"A couple of days."

"Fancy, then, her making it a personal matter that you should haveleft the place!"

Winterbourne was silent for some moments; then he said, "I suspect,Mrs. Walker, that you and I have lived too long at Geneva!"And he added a request that she should inform him with what particulardesign she had made him enter her carriage.

"I wished to beg you to cease your relations with Miss Miller--not to flirt with her--to give her no further opportunityto expose herself--to let her alone, in short."

"I'm afraid I can't do that," said Winterbourne."I like her extremely."

"All the more reason that you shouldn't help her to make a scandal."

"There shall be nothing scandalous in my attentions to her."

"There certainly will be in the way she takes them.But I have said what I had on my conscience," Mrs. Walker pursued."If you wish to rejoin the young lady I will put you down.Here, by the way, you have a chance."

The carriage was traversing that part of the PincianGarden that overhangs the wall of Rome and overlooksthe beautiful Villa Borghese. It is bordered by alarge parapet, near which there are several seats.One of the seats at a distance was occupied by a gentlemanand a lady, toward whom Mrs. Walker gave a toss of her head.At the same moment these persons rose and walked towardthe parapet. Winterbourne had asked the coachman to stop;he now descended from the carriage. His companion lookedat him a moment in silence; then, while he raised his hat,she drove majestically away. Winterbourne stood there;he had turned his eyes toward Daisy and her cavalier.They evidently saw no one; they were too deeply occupiedwith each other. When they reached the low garden wall,they stood a moment looking off at the great flat-toppedpine clusters of the Villa Borghese; then Giovanelliseated himself, familiarly, upon the broad ledge of the wall.The western sun in the opposite sky sent out a brilliantshaft through a couple of cloud bars, whereupon Daisy'scompanion took her parasol out of her hands and opened it.She came a little nearer, and he held the parasol over her;then, still holding it, he let it rest upon her shoulder,so that both of their heads were hidden from Winterbourne.This young man lingered a moment, then he began to walk.But he walked--not toward the couple with the parasol;toward the residence of his aunt, Mrs. Costello.

He flattered himself on the following day that there was no smilingamong the servants when he, at least, asked for Mrs. Miller ather hotel. This lady and her daughter, however, were not at home;and on the next day after, repeating his visit, Winterbourne againhad the misfortune not to find them. Mrs. Walker's party took placeon the evening of the third day, and, in spite of the frigidity of hislast interview with the hostess, Winterbourne was among the guests.Mrs. Walker was one of those American ladies who, while residing abroad,make a point, in their own phrase, of studying European society,and she had on this occasion collected several specimens of herdiversely born fellow mortals to serve, as it were, as textbooks.When Winterbourne arrived, Daisy Miller was not there, but in a fewmoments he saw her mother come in alone, very shyly and ruefully.Mrs. Miller's hair above her exposed-looking temples was more frizzledthan ever. As she approached Mrs. Walker, Winterbourne also drew near.

"You see, I've come all alone," said poor Mrs. Miller."I'm so frightened; I don't know what to do. It's the first timeI've ever been to a party alone, especially in this country.I wanted to bring Randolph or Eugenio, or someone, but Daisy justpushed me off by myself. I ain't used to going round alone."

"And does not your daughter intend to favor us with her society?"demanded Mrs. Walker impressively.

"Well, Daisy's all dressed," said Mrs. Miller with that accent ofthe dispassionate, if not of the philosophic, historian with which shealways recorded the current incidents of her daughter's career."She got dressed on purpose before dinner. But she's got a friendof hers there; that gentleman--the Italian--that she wanted to bring.They've got going at the piano; it seems as if they couldn't leave off.Mr. Giovanelli sings splendidly. But I guess they'll come before very long,"concluded Mrs. Miller hopefully.

"I'm sorry she should come in that way," said Mrs. Walker.

"Well, I told her that there was no use in her getting dressed beforedinner if she was going to wait three hours," responded Daisy's mamma."I didn't see the use of her putting on such a dress as that to sitround with Mr. Giovanelli."

"This is most horrible!" said Mrs. Walker, turning away andaddressing herself to Winterbourne. "Elle s'affiche. It'sher revenge for my having ventured to remonstrate with her.When she comes, I shall not speak to her."

Daisy came after eleven o'clock; but she was not,on such an occasion, a young lady to wait to be spoken to.She rustled forward in radiant loveliness, smiling and chattering,carrying a large bouquet, and attended by Mr. Giovanelli.Everyone stopped talking and turned and looked at her.She came straight to Mrs. Walker. "I'm afraid you thoughtI never was coming, so I sent mother off to tell you.I